


Hide Beside Me

by skinnypunkrogers



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Autistic Tony Stark, Dissociation, Emotional Support Animals, Fix-It of Sorts, M/M, Multi, Panic Attacks, Possible descriptions of violence, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Repressed Memories, none of the avengers are neurotypical
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-05
Updated: 2015-10-29
Packaged: 2018-02-24 05:18:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2569556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skinnypunkrogers/pseuds/skinnypunkrogers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky shows up on Steve's doorstep and asks him to help him remember. Steve, with the help of his friends and a very special cat, helps Bucky learn to remember who he was, and come to terms with PTSD, Dissociation, and the fact that he'll never be that person again, but that's okay, because he'll still be him, and that's more than good enough</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I'll Crawl Home

It’s the first time he remembers feeling silly, and in a way it’s strangely comforting. He makes mistakes, silly ones, he gets ahead of himself and things don’t go as planned. Its a deviation from what he’s come to think of as his programming. He used to, when they left him out to thaw for too long, think of himself as a puppet ( _petrushka)_ with strings being pulled.

 

But now no one is pulling his strings, and so really everything feels like he’s following lines of code. So when something doesn’t quite work out, and it doesn’t cause any disaster, he almost enjoys it.  

 

That’s the feeling he gets when he knocks on Steve’s apartment door and doesn’t get an answer, not even to the second knock. In his head, he imagined Steve answering his first knock in a matter of a few seconds, and after that he wasn’t sure. But nobody answers, but he doesn’t want to leave, so he stands there awkwardly for a second and then sits down in the stairwell. Where else would he go, anyway?

 

It’s raining out, and he’s already wet, the ends of his hair dripping in chill little rivers down the back of his neck. He stares at his boots, wondering what will happen and what he will do if Steve is on a mission, or… out of town? On a vacation? does Steve do that sort of thing? The way that he wonders and thinks things like this is still strange, dull and distant, like maybe he’s thinking about characters in a book, or in relation to someone that is not him, from inside whose head he  simply watches, an observer.

 

He gets drawn out of his strange, dull and distant introspection by a hoarse little meow and looks up the stairs. In front of Steve’s door, at the top of the steps, is a fluffy calico cat and it opened its mouth and makes another strange scratchy sort of meow at him. He blinks at it, then reaches out his hand and clicks his tongue against his teeth at it, and it trots down the stairs at him with its tail up. It stops to sniff his metal fingers curiously, then rubs against his hand purring. So he sits and pets the cat for a little while, until in fact she climbs onto his cold, damp lap and sits there purring with her eyes half closed. So he sits and pets her while the rain sheets down just outside the stairwell, and something strange and tangled up and knotted inside him comes loose, just a little bit. A tiny, tiny knot in an ocean of them. But it feels nice.

 

He doesn’t know how long he sits there, but by the time something happens, everywhere but his lap where she is sitting is very cold. Still he pets her almost automatically with his metal hand, because it is comforting, and he forgot what comforting things felt like. Then she looks up and makes another scratchy meow, and then runs down the stairs. Someone down the steps out of view makes kissing noises at her and she meows eagerly three times, and he tucks himself against the wall and pulls his hood up, looks down at his shoes and makes himself look as small as possible.

 

“Hi, Kinkade,” Says a soft voice that he thinks is familiar, and suddenly he is all knots again, his breathing is quick. He isn’t ready, he thought he was ready, but this isn’t on his terms, this isn’t approaching a door and getting an answer, this is being approached. His teeth grind together and plates in his hand shift into a fist.

 

“Hi, yeah! hello squeaker, yeah my good girl, you wanna get in out of the rain?” The voice is so sweet and small, barely above a stage whisper, he hesitates to flee. “Hey, Sam hold this while I get the key?”

 

Oh. Steve has someone with him, and Bucky tenses, ready to get up and run down the stairs at the opposite side of the breezeway. But he doesn’t have time, Steve and Sam round the corner, Sam with a handful of grocery bags and Steve with his keys half out of his pocket. They both freeze, and he does too, trapped and caught out. And then;

 

“Bucky?” Steve’s voice is disbelieving and nearly reverent, and something hits him just above his stomach and stings in his throat and makes his breath catch. He has had so many names, _The Asset, the ghost, the winter soldier, automaton, (petrushka) barnes…_ But Bucky was his name, no one has called him Bucky since he can remember except for Steve, he doesn’t remember it being his name but he remembers what it felt like every time Steve said it ever since the bridge. When he was trying to kill him, even then, it had felt like something sharp and bright in his mind of dull grey locks and stone.

 

And _God_ he wants to be Bucky again, he wants to remember who he must have been, he wants to remember when he was a man worth saving. He must have been, once, right? He wants someone to call him Bucky again. If he can be.

 

Swallowing thickly he gets up with less grace than he would like, and when he sees how they tense he pulls a knife out of his hoodie pocket and holds it out hilt first to them, almost urgently.

 

Steve won’t take it, but Sam is more suspicious, and he does. Bucky wipes both his hands nervously on the front of his jeans, swallows twice and shifts, looking down, to the side, anywhere but right at them. And then he manages to meet Steve’s eyes, just long enough to rasp in a voice that hasn’t been used and stings with fear and emotions he doesn’t remember names for anymore, “I didn’t know where else to go.”

 

Steve sits his groceries down, holds one hand out to Bucky palm forward to show he isn’t a threat, and signals with the other to Sam to _stay here, it’s fine, it’s fine just wait_ and comes up a few steps closer to Bucky who wants to but doesn’t back up. He glances behind him like he’s thinking about running for it, though, like a frightened animal. “I just--”

 

“Hey, Bucky? Hey, come on,” Steve says and Bucky shifts, swallows and looks at his feet, god this is so much scarier than he thought it would be.

 

“I just want to remember” Bucky finally whispers when Steve gets to him and puts a careful hand on his forearm, and looks up at Steves face like he’s begging him and it breaks Steve’s heart to see it.

 

“Okay,” He says quietly to Bucky, nodding toward his door, “Okay, lets go inside, you’re freezing. I’ll help you remember. I’m gonna help you remember.”

  
  


-x-

 

“You sure about this, man?” Sam asks Steve in the kitchen, looking over the bar into the living room, where Bucky is sitting cross legged on the coffee table in the middle of the room. It has the best vantage point, it didn’t take Sam long to figure out why he was sitting there, the mirror hung over the bar shows Bucky everything behind him, and from the middle of the room he can see the door to each room in the house. Mostly, it’s sad, but it’s also a little bit unsettling. But then, for the first two months Sam was home he locked his doors three times before bed, and he slept on the floor in the hallway, he doesn’t have any room to talk.

 

Steve looks into the living room, frowning, but there’s something soft in his face that worries Sam. Steve won’t see a trick coming, he’s always going to believe the best of his old friend, and Sam desperately hopes that everything he believes is right. Not just because he’s concerned for Steve’s safety, but because what Barnes has been through is hellish and he deserves to put his life back together.

 

Kinkade the cat jumps onto the coffee table and puts her paws on Bucky’s legs, leaning up toward his face, and Bucky blinks at her, then leans down so she can sniff his nose. Then she curls up in his lap and purrs while he pets her. Sam even sees Steve’s shoulders droop a little with fondness. “Yeah, Sam, I’m sure. It’s fine.”

 

_Please_ , Sam thinks, even though he nods and claps Steve on the shoulder with a friendly hand, _please be right. They could both use a little good._ “We’re supposed to meet up with Nat and Clint in an hour for dinner, want me to make an excuse, or--?”

 

Steve thinks for a second, and then seems to decide that Natasha and Clint will react alright to the news, “No, tell them the truth. But don’t tell anyone else yet, I need to… I’ll need to do some damage control first, I think that Clint and Nat might be able to help me with it. Get Nat to text me.”

 

Sam nods, and Steve walks him over to the door and gives him a one armed hug, thumping each other on the back. Sam hands him the knife back out of sight, and tells him quietly, “Be careful, Steve. I know he’s your friend, but so am I, and i’m just tellin’ you… be careful.”

 

Steve grips his forearm, “I know, Sam. I will.” He tells him seriously, “Thank you.”

Steve comes back into the living room and crouches in front of Bucky, bringing himself down to his eye level. Kinkade meows at him, and he scratches the top of her head, “Hey,” He tells Bucky softly, smiling the same way he smiles at Peggy sometimes, when she’s feeling particularly confused, “You want a cup of a coffee, help warm you up some more?”

 

Bucky is already in the clothes of Steves that he picked out, grey sweatpants and dark blue hoodie, both big enough to make him feel small ( _safe_ ) and comfortable, and he’s not really very cold anymore. He nods anyway, because Steve is so _nice_ with him and so gentle, and he’s afraid that if he says no, or appears to dislike the attention, it will stop. He doesn’t want it to stop, he can’t ever remember being taken care of, though he figures he must have been, once. He had parents who loved him, surely.

 

So Steve makes him a cup of coffee, and Bucky wraps his hands around it, the ceramic burning the palm of his flesh hand a little. But it’s kind of good, it makes him feel more connected to his body, more present. He presses his hand a little tighter to the curve of the mug, and sips it. It is somehow familiar, and he doesn’t ask for any more cream or sugar, nor would he want any less. He realizes after a minute that it’s because Steve used to make Bucky...make _him_ coffee, and must remember how he likes it.

 

He looks up quickly from his cup, “What was I like?” he asks Steve, because he wants to be that person again, maybe if he knows what he used to be like, he can just… just…  
  
Steve kneels in front of the coffee table, and he covers Bucky’s hands with his, lightly at first, but when Bucky doesn’t jerk away, he rests them there steadily, “Bucky, I-- You can’t just hope to go back to who- how you used to be right away, it doesn’t work like that.”

 

Hes been talking with Sam a lot, Steve has, visiting his talks at the VA, seeing a therapist. He looked for Bucky for months, until other duties forced him back, and then he couldn’t. He just… couldn’t. He couldn’t do anything, for a while, but then Sam helped urge him back out into the world. Things have been… good, he’s thought about Bucky daily, and it was a nagging weight, but his apartment is less sparse than it once was, it has art pieces hung up, books he actually enjoys scattered about, and the empty bedroom has an easel in it, and drying canvases. Making art again was what helped him the most.

 

“It takes time, Buck.” He notices the panic starting to rise in Bucky’s face, the protest, but Steve rubs his thumb over his jumping pulse in his wrist, “Don’t worry, we’ll be patient. We’ll get there, okay?” Bucky seems to relax a little at this, but his eyes dart to the side, he swallows. He isn’t so sure that Steve will stick around that long.

 

“Here, I have an idea, come sit on the couch and we’ll look at some things,” Steve says, getting up and going into his bedroom toward the front of the apartment. Bucky considers, but then decides that the vantage point isn’t that different, and moves to the middle cushion.

Steve comes back with a shallow oblong box, and sits down next to him.

“Look,” He opens the box, and the first picture out of a collection of them, along with letters, papers, two sets of dog tags and the edge of a gold chain he can see that seems somehow familiar. He looks at the picture Steve is holding, its three rows of older teenaged people, black and white, from some time around the thirties, “This is our senior class picture, you’re right there, see?”

 

That Bucky has his chin held high, his hair shorter and slicked back, his smile is cocky but not unpleasant. It doesn’t feel like him, he doesn’t feel like he’s looking at himself, and it makes him uncomfortable. Mirrors are the same way. He looks at the other people and then blinks, points, “That’s you,” He says, and Steve’s face lights up a little  
  
“Yeah,”  
  
Bucky looks between the picture and the real thing for a minute, “You were smaller, then”

 

Steve laughs, and Bucky isn’t sure if he said something silly and he should be embarrassed or not, but it undoes another of those infinite tiny little knots. He likes it when Steve laughs, “A lot smaller,” Steve agrees, and Bucky turns the corner of his mouth up at him. “Show me more.” A beat, “Please.”  
  
Steve smiles, and smiles a little more when Kinkade comes and sits in Bucky’s lap, purring, and Bucky pets her. The rhythmic motion seems to soothe him, and his posture relaxes, less like he wants to jump up any second. So Steve delves into the box, he shows Bucky the pictures from their army files, Steve’s five different enlistment forms, their sets of dog tags. Both of them have one of their own, and one of the others, Bucky notices, but for some reason he isn’t ready to turn that stone yet, so he runs his hands over them and sits it down. He looks through the pictures themselves, he hears about Agent Carter, the commandos, recognizes himself in pictures with uncomfortable dull jolts. He doesn’t like seeing himself, the disconnect between what he sees and what he perceives as his self is jarring and too frightening to deal with yet.

 

Bucky takes the copper-gold chain and pulls, and it slithers out with an old pocket watch attached. The hinges are rusted, and he goes to open it but it’s stuck. He could open it, of course, but he doesn’t want to break it. Steve is looking at him, almost hopeful, curious. Bucky turns it over in his hands a few times, runs his fingers over the familiar, worn smooth JBB carved into the back. “This was mine,” He says distantly, and for some reason he can remember it.

 

He can feel it’s weight in his hand when he thinks about it, he can remember turning it over and over in his hand, he can remember that it wasn’t the _watch_ that he was so attached to but… He frowns, his brows knit, he blinks like his head hurts and then shakes it. He can’t remember what was so important about it. He doesn’t put it back in the box, and Steve doesn’t ask him to. He holds it in his flesh and blood hand, warming it against his skin.

 

Steve shows him sketches he did during the war, a monkey on a ball in the uniform Steve says he wore doing shows, and they talk about the war, mostly. “I stole a motorcycle,” He tells Bucky, and for some reason that raises a flicker of annoyance in him, what a reckless, dangerous thing to do! why Bucky cares so much about that he isn’t sure, but that lingers with him for a while, while Steve tells him about going into enemy territory. Then the name “Zola.”

 

Bucky shuts down, his stomach turns he goes cold and he shakes his head, breathing catching in his throat, “I want to stop now,” He tells Steve urgently, tightly through his teeth, and then again, more firmly. He is allowed to want things now, he is allowed to set his own boundaries, he reminds himself of this but it only makes him more unsure and afraid, “I want to stop now”  
  
Steve sweeps everything but the watch, which Bucky is turning over and over in his hand without realizing it, into the box and puts the lid on it. “Okay,” He says immediately, “Okay, Bucky we’ll stop.” He moves so that he’s kneeling on the floor, lower than Bucky, looking up into his face. Bucky’s face is questioning but he doesn’t ask out loud what’s happening to him. It’s happened a few times, where he breathes too fast and he shakes and sometimes he chokes and coughs and he’s _so scared_ like the world will end, like his heart will explode, and things feel unreal and intangible and he’s _so frightened_ why is he so frightened why won’t it stop?

 

“Bucky? Bucky look at me,” he looks at Steve who is calm and gentle and looking up at his face, “Take a deep breath through your nose for me, Buck, okay? You can do that, now breathe out slow through your mouth. Yeah, that’s good, Buck. Keep doing that. You’re having a panic attack, alright? That’s okay, we’ll get through it. I’m gonna touch you now, Bucky, okay? Is that okay?”

 

Bucky gives a short, tight nod, and Steve lifts his hands. One takes the metal one in his, and the other strokes gently up and down his forearm over the sleeve of the hoodie, “Keep breathing, Bucky, Focus on me okay? Look around and describe the apartment to yourself- what do you hear?”  
  
“P-Purring,” He manages to say, because Kinkade has not moved, apparently unphased, “A--A clock.”   
  
“Good, listen to the clock, Buck. Keep focusing on the second hand, just listen. In and out, Buck, breathe. You see that painting over the mantel?”

 

“Yeah,”  
  
“Look at it, okay, just keep looking at it, don’t move. Just focus on it and keep breathing.”

 

Bucky looks at the painting, which is quite serene, and nothing in it shifts or changes, and he focuses, the tick comes and doesn’t change, the purring doesn’t warp. He is here, the weight in his lap is real, his grip on Steve’s hand is real, Steve’s hand on his arm is real. He is alive, he has no strings on him, he isn't a puppet ( _petrushka,_ the word sticks in his head,  _petrushka petrushka petrushka_ a scar and insult an identity) any longer. He blinks and his lashes are wet, everything blurs and he blinks rapidly, the rhythm of his breath falling apart with the sudden warp of his suroundings. Steve’s thumb touches his face and brushes the tears off it, and it’s so _tender_  that Bucky could cry.

 

Actually, maybe he wants to cry, now that he thinks about it he doesn’t remember the last time he did that. Did he? He must have. He blinks again, this time the tears don’t surprise him. He gently nudges Kinkade away and, just because he feels like its something he would want to do, he slides off the couch into the circle of Steve’s arms.   
  
“The clock, Bucky, you hear it?” Steve asks him, but Bucky hears Steve’s heart. He nods. “Keep listening, it’s there, you’re right here okay. You’re alright.” It takes several long, terrifying minutes, and then the tide seems to recede and Bucky takes one deep, freeing breath. He doesn’t move yet, because Steve’s hand is big and warm and sliding slowly up and down his back.

 

“There,” Steve comforts, and he grabs a box of tissues off the table and hands them to Bucky, who dries his face, “I told you we’d get through it. I know it’s scary, but they always pass.”  
  
Bucky blinks at him, lets Steve gently urge him up to his feet, “You have … that, too?”

 

“Not like I used to, but yeah,” He admits, quietly, rubbing his hands up and down Bucky’s arms, “I bet now you’re exhausted, aren’t you?”  
  
Bucky thinks about it a second, then nods, so Steve smiles, “You can sleep in my bed, i’ll take the couch, okay?” Bucky feels like it would be polite to argue, but he doesn’t really want to, so he doesn’t bother. He lets Steve get him settled into the bedroom, leaving him the coffee and a glass of water on his bedside table, “If you need me, i’m just in the next room, okay? Everything is okay.”

 

“Can--” Bucky seems to struggle just asking what he wants to ask, but he manages, “Can i have my knife back?”

 

So Steve gives it to him, and Bucky immediately puts it under his pillow and puts his hands where Steve can see them. “Buck,” Steve tells him, sitting on the side of the bed, “I trust you, okay? I trust you.” He puts a hand on Bucky’s forearm, squeezes gently, “Get some sleep, i’ll see you in the morning.”

 

Bucky sits and listens to him fold out the couch and throw a comforter onto it, then talk briefly on the phone too quietly for Bucky to make it out, but it sounds solemn, then the light clicks out except for the dim bluish flickering of a television. Kinkade is sprawled out on the pillow on the side of the bed Bucky doesn’t take when he lies down, and when Bucky puts a hand on her fluffy side, she begins to purr, loudly and comfortingly. Bucky closes his eyes.

  
Sleep comes easier than he ever remembers it.


	2. End Goals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky deals with more anxiety, Steve has a discussion about things with his friends and gives Bucky a present, and Bucky finds out something about their old relationship which might complicate things

Bucky wakes up at three am exactly, his jaw clenched so tight it hurts and hands curled into expectant fists. It’s dark and he doesn’t know where he is, there’s a strange noise coming from the room outside of his and something is moving beside his head on the…  
  
the bed?

 

Cautiously, he turns sideways to see a pretty, pudgy calico cat carefully grooming her tail. He blinks, memories are strange, even the short term ones. Everything seems like a movie he watched, or a book he read. Dim and distant, remembered, but as if he did not really experience it. Almost like a dream.   
  
The sound in the living room continues for a moment, then he hears someone- Steve, it must be Steve, but a tiny frightened voice in his head says _right_? so he sits up nervously and puts his toes on the cold floor, waiting.  
  
He hears the futon couch creak, a quiet clatter and Steve cursing. Bucky figures out that the sound he’s hearing is an emergency broadcast test on the TV, which Steve must have fallen asleep watching. The TV goes dark. Bucky doesn’t lay back down, though, he sits there not sure what to do with himself. He knows sleep is a lost cause, and he needs to relax, calm down. But he doesn’t know how to do that, he’s never had to do that before because he’s never been _safe_ before.  
  


Luckily, after almost fifteen minutes of him sitting rigid and silent in the dark, the TV in the living room turns back on and casts flickering bluish light through the cracked doorway. He hears Steve sigh heavily, then get up and walk into the kitchen, another soft light comes in and he hears the fridge open and shut, glasses, tinkering.   
  
And then a familiar smell, rich and bitter and strong: Coffee. He thinks about the warm mug in his hand earlier, how it had served as a reminder that he was here, present and solid. He stands up and walks stiffly out of the bedroom and into the kitchen in Steve’s relatively small apartment, his jaw still clenched. On some memorized, programmed instinct he had taken the knife from under his pillow, and when Steve turns around and starts a little in surprise to see him standing silently in the doorway, he quickly hands it to him, hilt first.  
  
“Bucky--? I- I don’t want that, why do you want me to take that?” Steve asks him, gently, taking Bucky’s hand in his and lowering it, removing the knife to toss it carelessly onto the counter. Bucky’s eyes follow it in concern.   
  
“My…” He blinks, what is the word? Handler? _Puppeteer_? he thinks that last one bitterly with a stab of hurt, “I’m supposed to make sure they have a weapon if we’re alone together.” He finishes softly, looking down, his teeth grind and his mouth works uncomfortably.   
  
“Hey,” Steve says softly, and Bucky looks up at him and then away. It’s the best Steve can hope for, so he continues, “You don’t need to do that anymore, ok? We don’t need to carry weapons around everywhere we go.” He knows he has several friends who would tell him that’s a blatant lie, but those friends aren’t superhumans and they’re too cynical sometimes.

 

Bucky blinks and nods, his mouth still working, his hands opening and closing. Steve steps back a little out of his space, and Bucky stops trying to mouth words without saying them. Steve is observant enough to realize he wanted to ask him to back up, but he felt like he couldn’t. “What are you doing up?” He asks, getting his favorite mug down out of the cabinet, “Did you need something? Whatever it is, you just have to ask, Buck, it’s okay.”  
  
Another tiny knot seems to come undone, Bucky’s eyes stop darting, but his hands still play restlessly. Steve remembers seeing a girl he passed at his psychiatrist’s office playing with play-doh, and some of the guys in the VA have spinner rings or rubik's cubes. He makes a mental note to add some of those things to his shopping list.  He knows Bucky has nothing, and it’s not like he doesn’t have money to spare after seventy years of army back pay, but he also knows that if Bucky is anything like he used to be he won’t appreciate charity. So Steve will keep it simple.   
  
“I… the tv woke me up,” Bucky says after a minute, shrugging, “but I don’t think I was having very good dreams. Could I have a cup of coffee?”  
  
“Sure,” Steve tells him, and gets another mug down from the cabinet, talking while he makes Bucky a cup and cuts him a slice of the leftover sweet potato pie in the fridge, “Hey, you’ve got a lot to catch up on, bud, how about we watch a movie? Man, wait until you see what they can do with cartoons these days.”  
  
Bucky doesn’t smile, but he stops frowning, and Steve will take neutral any day. Bucky watches with slightly dulled interest, perched in the corner of the folded out futon where he can lean against both the arm and the wall, as Steve connects his laptop to the television. He goes to a website called Netflix, and while he scrolls through movie titles Bucky suddenly recognizes something, “I remember that one,” He says with dull surprise, loud enough for Steve to hear and so he stops. Steve already knows which one he means.  
  
“Yeah, The Wizard of Oz, we saw it in the cinema together when it first came out. Do you want to watch it?”  
  
Feeling strange, Bucky nods, he doesn’t remember going to see it, he just… vaguely remembers that it exists and he knew about it once. So Steve plays the movie, gets his coffee and slice of pie, and sits on the opposite side of the futon. Bucky appreciates this, he likes that Steve is near him, it feels familiar and comforting in a way he can’t quite process yet, as if there’s a barrier between the feeling and himself. As much as he likes it, though, he still doesn’t want anyone too close to him. Steve doesn’t notice, and Bucky’s glad for it, that Bucky has eaten his entire slice of pie in two bites while Steve was setting up the laptop.   
  
It sits well in his stomach, and a thought occurs to him. He could ask for another slice, he could, probably, even go and get one himself. He could, probably, eat whatever he wanted in the house. Steve has shown that he’s perfectly willing to take care of him, and that Bucky no longer has to wonder when his next meal is or where it will come from. He marvels at that, at the fact that he could just get up and go get something from the fridge, and that someone cares enough to feed him.  
  
He doesn’t realize he’s staring seriously at Steve until Steve realizes it and looks at him, giving him a sheepish smile and an eyebrow raise, “Whats up?” He asks Bucky, who doesn’t know quite how to handle the situation and thus widens his eyes and looks away back to the movie. Steve’s mouth twitches in a barely controlled smile.

 

Steve falls asleep around the same time that Dorothy and her companions are falling asleep in the poppy field, and as soon as Bucky is sure that he’s sleeping (because of the quiet little sighing snore he gives which makes Bucky feeling a strange internal warmness that he can’t place, it’s an emotion he can’t remember yet) he turns and looks at him. The movie is nice, but it isn’t making him remember anything, except … well, he thinks maybe once he remembers something about colors… He thinks hard on it for a while, but the way it keeps slipping away makes him frustrated and anxious.

 

So he looks at Steve, and he marvels that someone feels comfortable enough with him around to fall asleep. He could reach out and strangle him with his metal hand. The fingers of it twitch. Bucky flinches in horror, and he crosses his arm over himself to close his flesh and blood fingers over his metal elbow, holding his stomach. Would he? He wonders, would he do something like that now? Not just to Steve, but to anyone, a stranger on the street? It doesn’t frighten him the same way as when he thought it about Steve, maybe that’s because there are no strangers around, but it disgusts him.

 

The wave of relief that comes to him, when he realizes that there is no bloodlust to be found, makes him sigh out loud. He watches Steve some more, using his arm as a pillow against the couch arm, with only his feet tucked under the blanket. Automatically, without thinking of it, Bucky moves the blanket up to Steve’s shoulders, like an old habit. He wonders about it, he feels like maybe … but it slips away again and he feels anxious and frustrated again.

 

Are these memories? He wonders, are they memories or does he want them to be, is he just making something out of nothing? And how can he be sure any of his memories are real, how can he be sure that he’s not dreaming right now, that this isn’t a fabricated memory too? He goes very still, his breathing high and tight and teeth clenched until it hurts. He stays like this for a long time, too long, afraid to move. His jaw aches, his legs have gone numb where he’s got them crossed under him. He trembles a little. Outside the sun is coming up, the clock says it’s six o’clock, and he can hear the city below coming awake.   
  
“Steve?” It’s barely above a whisper, and Steve doesn’t stir. Bucky moves for the first time, and he touches Steve lightly on one leg, shakes just a tiny bit, “Steve?” his voice is a little higher than he would like. Steve starts, seeming to recognize something is wrong, and sits up.

 

“Whassamatter Buck?” he asks sleepily, dragging one hand over his face to wake him up, blinking in the grey light to focus on Bucky’s still form. He can hear him breathing, too fast, shaky.   
  
“I think i’m… I think i’m having another panic attack?” Bucky says it with a question at the end, and Steve nods, blinking to wake himself up, “What do I do?”  
  
“Okay, okay” Steve says, moving to sit on the floor again, holding out his hands to Bucky to see if he wants to take them. Surprising himself, Bucky does. They are sleep-warm, and it ties him to the moment, a sensation to prove that he’s here. It helps, but just a tiny bit, “Tell me what you’re afraid of, Bucky, what’s got you like this?”  
  
“I… I don’t know what memories are real or not, or if I just… made them up, or someone made them up for me. I don’t know if this is real, if _i’m_ real. _you're_ real, right, you’re warm, you have to be” Bucky’s talking too much, Steve squeezes his hands.  
  
“Bucky, remember how I taught you to breathe yesterday? I want you to do that, and focus just like I told you to. Can you do that? I’m going to go get you something, okay?” Bucky tightens his hold on Steve’s hands, clearly uncomfortable with him leaving, but then he immediately lets go even though he doesn’t want to. He nods, even though he isn’t sure. Steve frowns a little deeper. “Just a second, just give me thirty seconds, look at the clock and count them there, okay?”  
  
Bucky nods, and looks at the clock, by the time he gets to second twenty seven and begins to get anxious, Steve comes back with a heating pad in his hands. “Here we go,” He says gently, kneeling down next to the couch where he plugs it in, and then hands it to Bucky, turning it up to high to get it to heat up as fast as possible. “This is gonna get really warm, okay? You can hold onto it, and remind yourself that this is real.”  
  
Bucky nods, seemingly a little sceptical, but as Steve walks him through breathing and talks to him in a soothing voice, the heating pad gets hot on his lap. Bucky looks at it, rubs his hands over it, blinks. He can’t explain just how it makes him feel better, but it almost helps him connect the two halves of himself that are split by the hazy wall. He hugs the warm, cloth wrapped thing to his stomach and lets out a big sigh.  He nods, wordlessly indicating to Steve that the worst is over. Steve turns the pad down to medium, and puts the blanket that was over him until a short while ago over Bucky to hold in the heat.

  
Kinkade comes and sits against Bucky’s legs, purring, her feet clenching and unclenching as she kneads the air. Bucky leans on a pillow against the couch arm, and stays very still, listening to the purr and the clock tick, and Steve sits and waits patiently, silently there to bolster him. Bucky falls asleep as the adrenaline leaves him.   
  
Steve gets up, sighing and rubs his hands over his face in frustration. He wonders what the  government knows about Bucky, and if they’re going to want to bring him in for trial and he wonders if he can convince them that Bucky isn’t medically or mentally fit for trial to put it off a while. He ends up laying on his bed staring at the ceiling as he tries to get a little bit more sleep, but it doesn’t come.

 

Eventually he gets up and shoots off a few text messages, and gets into the shower to get dressed for the day. He makes sure to pick jeans, because every time he wears the khakis Natasha ribs him about dressing like an old man. What he really wants to do is go for a run, but he also doesn’t want to leave Bucky alone unless he has to, and he expects Sam, Natasha and Clint over by lunch time, and to run himself as tired as he wants to would take all day.  Aimless, he lays on his stomach on the bed and reads _the_ _Outsiders_ , the current book from the seemingly insurmountable stack of books people keep telling him he absolutely can’t miss, for a while. Bucky is sleeping, and he wants to avoid waking him up for as long as possible, but when his stomach begins to growl he concedes that Bucky could probably use a good meal himself.   
  
Still, he’s quiet as he walks into the kitchen, Bucky is still curled up in as small a ball as he can possibly get, hugging the heating pad loosely to his stomach. Kinkade is sprawled out beside him, but when Steve comes in she jumps up, trilling and meowing hoarsely around his feet until he lets her out onto the breezeway. What she does out there all day he isn’t sure, but she never seems to go out onto the street. Maybe she just greets the neighbors all day, it seems like a Kinkade thing to do.   
  
As quietly as possible, he makes a proper breakfast, with hash and eggs and pancakes and bacon, and more coffee. Sure, the caffeine doesn’t do anything anymore, but it just makes it feel more like breakfast. Steve isn’t sure if the increased noise, or the smell wakes Bucky, but before he knows it, Bucky is standing behind him in the kitchen and Steve jumps in surprise.   
  
Bucky takes a step back, his hands curling together near his stomach like he misses holding the heating pad there, and looks away from the counter and at his feet. “Sorry.”  
  
“You’re okay,” Steve tells him while his heart rate drops back to normal, “I just didn’t hear you get up. Are you hungry?”  
  
Bucky looks at the food on the stove and counter and Steve actually hears his stomach growl when he nods. Steve thinks about how he looked yesterday, unkempt and ragged, and wonders what and when Bucky ate last. He wants to stack his plate with pancakes, give him huge servings, but he worries that if Bucky’s been going as hungry as he fears he has that it’ll just make him sick. So he stays as modest as he can without feeling guilty, even if maybe it’s still a little too much.   
  
Bucky thanks him quietly, and sits at the table staring at the veritable feast in front of him. It’s the same feeling from the night before, awe and relief and gratitude that someone is willing to give him these things. He’s so hungry, and so eager to eat, that he mentally shoos away the twinge of fear and suspicion, the little voice that says _what’s the catch?_  
  
He eats selfishly, body language tensed forward above his plate as if expecting it to be snatched away from him at any moment, and he ignores the ache in his belly to eat every bite. He swallows the last bit of pancake thickly, and swallows again feeling a little bit ill.   
  
“You full?” Steve asks him, and Bucky eyes the plates on the table, which still have food on them. He thinks about that food being thrown away and feels a pang of fear. He wants to shake his head, but thinking about eating more makes him feel sick. He just frowns at the table instead.   
  
“I’m gonna put the leftovers in the fridge, I think,” Steve says, as if musing aloud to himself, “I could make omelettes with it tomorrow.” Bucky relaxes, and lets Steve pack up the leftover hash and bacon and scrambled eggs. Once put in the fridge, Steve washes the dishes by hand, feeling strangely serene. He has to shake himself out of the reverie, he has to remember that this is not the past, this is not him and bucky in that little matchbox of a rented room, or in the kitchen of the boarding house doing dishes and chores to take a little off their rent.   
  
He dries his hands, then runs them over his face, taking a deep breath. “Bucky?” Bucky looks up, having not moved from the table trying to calm his hurting stomach, “I have friends of mine coming over, I understand if you don’t want to be out here, okay? You can go in my room and rest, read whatever you feel comfortable doing, okay?”  
  
Strangers, Bucky feels a flash of panic, likely former enemies who will not be so kind to him as Steve. He just nods wordlessly, and stays at the table. “You okay?” Steve asks him, gingerly putting a hand on Bucky’s shoulder. Bucky nods, shrugs, then looks up at him imploringly. He doesn’t know what he is. Steve smiles sympathetically at him and squeezes his shoulder very gently. “How about a shower?”   
  
Bucky takes him up on the offer, finding the water warm and soothing, grounding him in a way that nothing else has so far. He feels like himself, whatever or whoever that is, but he feels like a thing that exists and not as if he is registering this dimly, the reader of a book. He stays in there for a very long time, and the bone deep cold that he always seems to feel actually begins to ebb, and then the water starts to cool down and he knows he will run out of hot water soon. Before it happens, he turns the cold off entirely, until he even begins just a little to sweat.

 

Once he feels fully warm, he steps out into the bathroom, where Steve has put a small ceramic space heater to keep him as warm as possible. He has also given Bucky a pair of very soft grey sweat pants and a tee-shirt that fits him perfectly (but probably would have been tight on Steve), and a big black hoodie with a small red hourglass shape on the front pocket. The tag says that it is official black widow merchandise. It’s very, very soft on the inside, and hangs down over his hands, so he rubs his fingers over the velvety fleece lining repeatedly.   
  
His hair is damp and sits against his neck and jawline, cooling quickly and bringing an unpleasant chill. He pokes curiously around Steve’s bathroom, rows of medicine bottles, shaving equipment, cologne and things in the medicine cabinet, towels, sheets, and things in the linen closet. He crouches down to look under the sink, and finds a ponytail holder on the floor. He wonders if Steve has a girlfriend, and what she will think of Bucky. He wonders why that thought flickers anxiously. He puts his hair in a messy bun, and with it no longer sitting on his neck, he feels a little better.  
  
He goes to creep back out, like a timid cat, only to hear multiple voices and freeze. His hand goes to his pocket for his knife, but he remembers Steve carelessly throwing it onto the counter. The warmth he worked so hard for starts ebbing with the fear-chill. He listens intently from behind the mostly closed bedroom door, and recognizes Steve’s voice, talking solemnly but calmly to the other voices and relaxes a little. They must be the friends Steve mentioned. He peeks through the gap in the door, where he can see the mirror above the living room. He recognizes Sam, and the woman he realizes is the Black Widow, Natasha Romanov who seems familiar to him, and for some reason makes him feel guilty.

 

The other he knows only from what he knows of the Avengers, Clint Barton, Hawkeye. Romanov is leaning heavily on Barton’s side, but she’s resting her dainty feet against Steve’s calf where he is sitting crosslegged on the couch, turned in to face all of them at once. Sam sits on the ottoman with his elbows on his knees and chin in hand. He can’t quite make out what they’re saying, but all he can see on their faces is concern.   
  
Deciding there is no immediate threat, he is about to close the door and get into the bed, when Romanov’s eyes flick up to the mirror and catch his. His eyes widen and he shuts the door with a click, heart racing, and quickly retreats to the bed. They knew he was there, sure, but he wanted to be the unseen observer. He curls up under the comforter, after finding that Steve left the heating pad there to get the bed warm, and though he doesn’t sleep he does manage to set the rhythm of his breathing with the ticking of the clock.

 

“Look--I’m not… I’m not saying we need to find a way to stop the trial all together--” Steve is saying, chin in his hands and hair up at all ends from running his restless fingers through it repeatedly.

  
  


“Just until he can take it,” Natasha supplies for him, and he smiles at her wanly, and then she nods and shrugs, “I think we can manage that much.”  
  
“He deserves a fair trial,” Sam says, pushing a cup of coffee into Steve’s hands, “Part of that is making sure he’s fit to stand one.”  
  
“Its not just that,” Steve tells them, but he already sounds grateful, “I just. There’ll be a media circus the second anybody knows he’s alive. He’ll be in danger.”  
  
“We’re always in danger,” Clint manages to sound both mild and scathing at the same time, and the four of them laugh a little despite the somber tone of their conversation.   
  
“Yeah, but you know what I mean.”  
  
“We get it, Steve,” Sam tells him, gripping his shoulder firmly, “we’re tryin to tell you we’re here for you, and him too, so you can stop worrying.”  
  
Some of the tension goes out of Steves shoulders and he nods, rubbing his hand over his mouth and resting his chin in it. “How do we tell the others?”  
  
“We’ll worry about that part,” Natasha tells him, “Worry about him. You need to get him into therapy, Sam do you know anybody trustworthy?”   
  
The conversation spins out into treatment discussions, Steve a little guiltily telling them about Bucky having panic attacks, and the sensory thing with the heating pad. Sam promises to do a little digging, and Natasha does a little internet searching and finds a bunch of things that might help him. Steve buys a lot of things for him on impulse, but he never really spends any of his money on himself so he feels like he can spare it. Natasha thinks of one more thing, and grabs Clint’s hands, which are almost as busy as Bucky’s, and yanks him forward, doubling him over.  
  
“Get him one of these,” She tells Steve, indicating the spinner ring on one of Clint’s fingers, (“Nat, let me go, I can just take the ring off,” Clint is complaining, slightly muffled against her shoulder, but he’s smiling anyway. She doesn’t let go, the corners of her mouth twitching.) “He was insufferable before. I mean he’s still insufferable, but he was _worse_ ”   
  
Steve laughs a little, untangling her hands from Clint’s to free him, but he just rests his chin on  Natasha’s shoulder and puts his hand in the more comfortable position of her hips. “Where did you get it?”   
  
“Somewhere in chinatown, I don’t know.”  
  
Steve’s friends stay for a little while longer, which Steve takes a lot of comfort in because he was feeling pretty on his own in this whole thing. His friends’ visit was a nice reminder that he had people on his side, who were going to help him through things. They eat lunch and Sam helps him with the dishes, then he bids them goodbye and locks up behind them. He takes a deep breath, smiling a little, and then takes a plate with a sandwich and a pile of chips on it into his room for Bucky.  
  
Bucky is asleep, only the very top of his head visible over the blankets, and from the shape of him Steve can tell that he’s curled up in a ball. Steve stands there for a second, looking affectionately at him.   
  
Steve sits the food on the bedside table and very quietly gets dressed to go out, wanting to leave a note and leave unexpectedly as a last resort (Secretly, he’s afraid he’s going to come back and Bucky won’t be there. He’s afraid he’ll lose him again and he doesn’t know if he can take that.) he waits until he can’t anymore, having already laced up his shoes. He writes a note and puts it on top of the sandwich plate. He feels a surge of familiarity, nostalgia and love he never lost, the urge to kiss the top of Bucky’s head. He sighs, shakes his head at himself, and quietly leaves the apartment.  
  
\---  
He might have walked the entire length of Chinatown twice, but he did eventually find the place Natasha must have gotten Clint’s spinner ring (He certainly didn’t see any anywhere else) and agonized for ages over the choice. He didn’t want to pick anything that was too romantic (there was one with small hearts on it, some that were too formal) or anything Bucky wouldn’t like. But then again, he didn’t know what he would and wouldn’t like anymore. He eventually picked one that had small gears in the center, and when spun made a very soft little clicking noise, which he found quite pleasant.   
  
He stopped at a few other places, mostly to stock up on basic necessities for Bucky. His own clothes, mostly, just a few basic pairs of everything for now. Bucky can pick out his own when he feels up to it.  He also swung by the grocery store, since now he has more than just himself to cook for.  
  
Which means in the end that he has an awful lot of things to carry, and he’s very clumsily trying to get his keys out of his back pocket without dropping them, and stubbornly refusing to sit his bags down like a normal, logical human being. He bumps his shoulder against the door and curses, and then, softly, from just inside the door.  
  
“Steve?”  
  
He hesitates, a little embarrassed because this is the kind of shit he used to pull all the time when he was small and sickly and Bucky was always having to help him out. “...Yeah?”  
  
“Are you alone?”  
  
“Yeah, Buck. Everything is okay, my hands are just full.”   
  
Bucky looks out the peephole in the door, then the lock clicks and he lets Steve in. He watches Steve struggling with the bags, before something clicks and he thinks he ought to help. So he does, and Steve gives him a glowing smile that makes Bucky feel pleasantly funny. “Where did you go?” Bucky asks him, and despite his best efforts he sounds a little hurt that Steve left him at all.   
  
Steve smiles at him, shrugs, “I just ran some errands, Buck. We needed more groceries, and you needed clothes so you didn’t wear all of mine” Bucky is twisting his hands in his hoodie, head bowed, looking nervous, which reminds Steve of the other reason (definitely not the _primary_ reason or anything) he went out. “Oh, and I got you something.”  
  
Bucky blinks at him, watching him go through the multitudinous bags on the kitchen floor. Finally he finds the bag he’s looking for inside another bag, and smiles sheepishly at Bucky while he hands it over.  “I uh. Natasha mentioned ... Um. I thought maybe it might help you relax having something to fidget with. So I… Bucky?”  
  
Bucky has turned the ring over and over, clicked the gears a few times, and suddenly his hands are shaking. He closes them around the ring covetously, as if he’s afraid Steve will snatch it back and change his mind about the gift. He isn’t sure why it’s having such an effect on him, but it is. It’s an item, a concrete, visible piece of affection. Something that somehow proves to him, in a way he doesn’t understand yet, or why, more than the care he’s been given so far, that Steve cares about him. He specifically went out and looked for something and got him something, with Bucky’s best interest in mind.  
  
He blinks quickly, mouth set stubbornly because he _is not_ going to cry. But his eyes and throat definitely sting. “Are you...okay, Buck?” Steve asks him quietly, stepping closer and then putting a hand on his arm. Bucky nods quickly, then shakes his head, then looks at Steve quizzically. He actually laughs, dry and hollow, but it’s a laugh,  
  
“I don’t know?”  
  


Steve chuckles a little, hand stroking gently from shoulder to elbow and back, “I know how that is.”  
  
“Thank you,” Bucky whispers, looking down at the ring cupped in his hands, clicking the gears, then sliding it onto the middle finger of his flesh and blood hand. He doesn’t know how to properly convey his thanks, but he does the only thing he can think of. He lets his guard down, head bowed, and steps into Steve’s space. He doesn’t embrace him, he lets Steve decide if he wants to do that, but he touches his forehead gently against Steve’s shoulder.   
  
Steve feels all the breath go out of him, overwhelmed with his own urge to cry, hands coming up hesitantly before his arms finally go around Bucky. Bucky lets him hold him, even though he trembles with the effort it takes to keep his guard down, and Steve takes advantage, holding him tightly with his nose in the crook of his neck.   
  
Bucky realizes suddenly that he enjoys this. He loves the way Steve touches him, and holds him, the way Steve feels against him, solid and safe. His breath catches, and his trembling increases, blinking slowly and feeling tears drop down his face. Steve goes to let him go, assuming that Bucky’s discomfort is peaking. But Bucky brings his own arms up and holds onto the back of his shirt, and turns his face to bury it in his shoulder. Steve blinks, his own eyes stinging, then goes back to holding him just as tight as before. Bucky shivers like he’s going to fall apart, and he breathes unevenly, but he holds onto Steve, and Steve doesn’t let him go. Eventually, slowly, Bucky stops shaking, and his breathing evens out. His instincts stop rebelling against the vulnerability, the impending trap, and he takes in the way that Steve’s heart is still pounding under his ear, the solid way that he feels, the smell of him.   
  
Bucky shifts a little bit, subtly wriggling himself closer to Steve. He has no idea how long they stand there, but eventually he trembles again, the instinctual fear of impending hurt returning and urging him away. Regretfully, he disentangles himself, and murmurs hoarsely again, “Thank you”

 

Steve clears his throat, his own voice tight with emotion, “Yeah.”  
  
Bucky helps him put the groceries away, and then watches him loading up the washing machine. Steve hears the soft clicking of the gears in his spinner ring, and smiles when his back is turned. “Steve?” At that, he turns around, hums a question, “Can we look at the box again?”  
  
Steve blinks at him, then gives him a soft and affectionate, if slightly nervous, smile, “Yeah, Buck, if you really want to”

 

Bucky nods at him, but he looks on edge, uncertain too. But he’s determined. He wants to remember. They sit back on the couch like last time, and Steve gets the box and opens it.

 

Bucky takes the watch again right away. He doesn't open it, just warms it and turns it in his hand while looking at things. Steve is careful not to mention Zola, or Red Skull or anything to do with Hydra. He tells him stories from before the war. Its familiar, not like he lived it, but maybe a book he once read.

 

It's a weird dissociation, it makes him vaguely uneasy, but he pushes onward. Eventually, there's nothing else to look at, and they sit there for a second in silence. Bucky thinks about the snatches he remembers: skinny legs over a new york fire escape, the sound of gunfire and artillery shells, a flying car and an aching figurative hole in his chest leaving on a ship across the sea.

 

Steve is quiet too, thinking of friends lost and nightmares faced. Bucky opens the pocket watch. Its Steve, young and small and tired, old fashioned washed out sepia looking not at the camera but at some other point, torn off now, but with a smile on his face and devoted affection in his eyes.

 

Something comes rushing back at him, and Bucky realizes Steve in this picture is looking at him out of this frame. He remembers something, but not in words, in feelings and the memory of feelings. The sense of a thing, that used to make his chest bloom warm, his head feel light.

 

"Steve?" Bucky asks him after a minute, voice soft and confused, "Were we... were we ... something?"

 

Steve gives him radio silence for several long seconds, Bucky’s heart feels caught in his throat and he feels sick with it. Why is that idea so terrifying? When he really thinks about it, he finds… _something_. A bright, warm thing, a Good thing and his immediate response is panic and avoidance.   
  
Is he afraid of losing it, or does he just not think he deserves it?   
  
Steve clears his throat, “Yeah,” He says at last, voice dry and unsure, his hands twisting together anxiously in his lap, peering up at Bucky anxiously. He looks like he’s afraid Bucky might get up and run at any second, it’s the most vulnerable that Bucky has seen him since coming home--back. Coming back.  
  
“But, Buck that-- “ He clears his throat, knits his brow in an endearing sort of way, clearly trying to get his words in order. “That was so long ago, I- can’t--” He pauses, clears his throat and a sort of panic comes over Bucky, thinking Steve’s about to say that he can’t feel that way anymore, and Bucky deliriously but silently wonders if he’s about to be broken up with 70 years too late. And he finds that scary, and he finds that he finds it scary even scarier. He’s not ready for this much emotion.   
  
“I can’t expect you to still feel that way about me,” Steve continues, “Or-- I don’t even know if you remember what we have- had. We don’t-- I’m not going to ask anything of you, or pressure you into anything. If-- Maybe if eventually, one day, you feel like it’s… something you’d like to pursue or p-pick up i’m.” At this point, he finally looks up and he meets Bucky’s gaze, intent and genuine, the very corner of his mouth turns up but he hardly looks like he wants to smile, “I’m not gonna turn you down.”

 

Bucky considers this for a long time, or it feels like a long time to the both of them, and Steve keeps growing more and more nervous until he feels like his skin is going to crawl right off of him. Bucky’s emotions are confused, he doesn’t know what he’s feeling or what he’s _supposed_ to be feeling… It hits a fever pitch, and he momentarily gets a brief panicked look on his face thinking he’s about to have another panic attack.   
  
Then he heaves a long sigh and closes his eyes, he stops feeling everything except for in a dull detached way. He doesn’t like this either, he remembers when this was all he felt no matter how hard he tried, for weeks, for months, until he started feeling again and he got locked back in cryo.   
  
That’s why he thinks he’s so afraid to let himself feel these things, he’s been conditioned to think the only way to avoid punishment is to be the robot they wanted him to be. But he isn’t theirs anymore, and he can’t be his own person if he never feels anything. And he _does_ feel things, he can _feel_ it, he knows that something is there, and he knows it’s important, and that feeling it would be… good. He wants to feel it.   
  
If he deserves to is another question altogether.  
  
“I… i’m tired,” is all he can think to say, because how do you explain that you feel like someone turned you off again and you’re terrified that you won’t ever be on again, but you can’t even feel _that_ properly? He feels distant again, like he’s living a dream, or reading a book where he’s the protagonist. “I need to think.” He won’t look at Steve, he feels dully guilty already, and he doesn’t want to see the disappointment on his face, see the affection go out of it. “I want to sleep.”  
  
Maybe, he thinks with not much hope at all, when he wakes up he’ll feel alive again. It’s a good thing he didn’t look at Steve, because the crushing, fearful sadness that flashes across his face would have just set him off all over again. Steve quickly makes his expression neutrally gentle, understanding. “Okay, Buck, c’mon. We’ll put all this stuff away and you can get some sleep.”   
  
Bucky nods, feeling drained at the same time as he feels anxious and uncomfortable, standing stiffly to one side while Steve puts everything back in the box (gently, lovingly, reverently, the dull emotional aspect of himself notes with what maybe, if he actually had the words for any emotion he might have been feeling, might have been affection maybe even jealousy, a desire to be treated that way. He doesn’t even have time to acknowledge it, the apathy swallows it whole before he even knows what hes feeling.) and then following just behind him into Steve’s room.   
  
Steve puts the box carefully on the shelf and come back out of the small walk in closet with the heating pad for Bucky. He doesn’t seem at all bothered by what transpired, except that he isn’t searching Bucky’s face at every opportunity. Once Bucky is settled with the heating pad, and Steve is sure he’s got everything he needs (including, again, the knife under his pillow, which he shoves out of sight as quickly as possible and shows Steve his hands. Gently, Steve just pushes his hands back down on the bed, squeezing.) Steve goes into the bathroom off the bedroom to brush his teeth and put on his pajamas.   
  
Bucky thinks what he’s feeling might be loneliness when Steve bids him a soft goodnight and goes out into the living room to sleep on the couch bed again. Bucky doesn’t fall asleep as easily as the first night--To be fair, actually, it’s only about 8 in the evening and he napped that day. He only wants to go to bed so he can stop feeling miserable for a little while. He curls up with the heating pad on his cold belly, an icy lead weight that feels like it’s going to pull his entire body right through the mattress, the floor, the earth. He closes his eyes and tries to wipe his mind and ignores the wetness pooling in the small place between eye and nose, even when it tickles down his face to the pillow. He turns and turns and turns the softly clicking spinner ring.

  
Steve fares little better, at first he can focus on cleaning up the house, eating something, going into the spare bedroom he’s been using for an impromptu art studio to start organizing and packing up the various unfinished canvases. He can pack them up, sell or store them, white wash the canvasses for later use if he doesn’t like them, and turn the room into Bucky’s. It isn’t a swoop of his stomach, but a sudden jerk like a stone dropping into it. He doesn’t want Bucky to have his own room, Bucky hasn’t had his own room when they lived together ever. They’ve always shared, even in the army they shared a barrack, a tent. There’s a rift gaping wide between them right at his toes and he feels dizzy with it suddenly.   
  


He has to sit down, head in hands. Since the second Bucky showed back up on his doorstep he’s been acting on the assumption that their final goal would end up being right where they left off before Bucky fell. Now Steve doesn’t know what it is. Sitting there, he begins to feel guilty for making this about him, he shakes his head at himself and runs his hands through his hair.

 

This isn’t about him, and it never should have been. This is about Bucky, and what he’s been through, and trying to help him through it. This is about keeping Bucky safe and healthy, and helping him figure out who he is now, not about what he used to be. What they used to be. Steve sighs again, rubbing his hands over his face while he tries to shake off the melancholy that’s come over him. He wishes he hadn’t answered, he wishes Bucky hadn’t asked, now he’s terrified he’s scared Bucky off.

 

He finishes packing up his canvasses, except for a few projects that he’s currently working on and can’t stand the thought of giving up on. He’ll move them to his room when Bucky wakes up, the others he puts in storage totes, or leans them on the wall in the corner of the breakfast nook covered with a sheet. It feels good to be making art again, and there are so many colors to work with now that he can see them. But sometimes he can’t give up his old methods, and when he restlessly picks up a stick of charcoal he doesn’t think to go for the colored ones.

 

He does several mindless little sketches on a big, blank canvass. A pocket watch with his picture inside it, a hand with bloody knuckles, a barking dog, a cat, a playing dog. He slowly starts drawing happier things, small birds he sees in the park when he’s running, the huge pigeon that lives on Sam’s balcony and sometimes sits in his lap for bread crumbs, Sam laughing, Natasha laughing.

 

Bucky laughing.

 

Steve stops after that one, and looks at it for a long minute. _That_ is the end goal.

 


	3. Heart

Bucky wakes up the next day feeling low. The place where his metal arm fuses with his shoulder aches dully, a heavy weight and deep pain of the artificial nerves against the macerated real ones. He cringes, gritting his teeth together, and rubs the place, trying to rub out the ache there. It’s always done this, but as long as he could keep up his missions, his handlers never cared to do anything about it. They hardly cared about his comfort when they only ever saw him as a machine.

 

They didn’t make it so the arm could come off, it’s fused there, and there’s no way to relieve the ache it causes except to just hope it stops soon. After he gets used to the pain, he rolls over and looks at the ceiling, it’s so early the light outside is still grey… All he can think about is last night. The strange feeling of being so overwhelmed that everything just turned off, the self-loathing, the near-panic. And the strange bright place in his memory that might be Steve.

 

He lays there for a while longer, then eventually gets out of bed and goes to shower. He’s been so long without being able to just go take a shower, and spent enough time not being clean at all, that one of the only things he consciously knows he wants to do is shower.

 

He uses all the hot water and only feels a little bit guilty, less guilty when he discovers that Steve is still asleep and won’t be using it soon. He stands awkwardly in the living room, unsure if he’s supposed to wake Steve or not, then decides on not, because last night still feels awkward and confusing, and he’s not ready to turn any stones.  He wanders around the apartment aimlessly, hesitantly eats a slice of pie (with a fork right from the tin) and hopes Steve won’t be mad about it, eventually ending up in the bedroom Steve uses for his art studio.

 

Bucky looks at the pieces curiously, golds and reds and rich browns in what first appears to be burning Icarus, but might actually be The Falcon, bare shoulders with blood red curls and freckles, and a canvas of doodles, one of which is his own face. He looks at it for a long time, his hands twisting in the hem of his shirt, or clicking the spinner ring. That’s his face, he knows it’s his face, but it feels like such a disconnect, and he thinks he won’t ever see that expression on his face anywhere else but there.

 

“Buck?” He jumps a little, and muscle memory makes him go for where a holster would be, but there isn’t anything there, so he just grabs a handful of his sweater and tries to calm down. Steve, rubbing the heels of his palms over his bleary eyes, is in the doorway, frowning. “Y’alright?”

 

“I’m fine,” He tells Steve flatly. Is he?  Probably not, but he just doesn’t feel capable of giving it the attention it needs. He’s just so tired and so numb, all he feels is the ache in his shoulder and the weight in his stomach. He has trouble focusing on any one thing, let alone actually making eye contact, he just feels like he’s dully staring into the middle distance no matter what he does.

 

He rubs his shoulder where it aches, and Steve frowns more deeply at him. "Bucky, does your arm hurt you?" Steve asks him, and Bucky shrugs.

 

"I guess" he says dully, he feels incapable of anything but a monotone. Then he thinks for a second. He needs to connect, to ground himself and try to stay here, end the feeling of floating slightly out of his body. Like reading a book, so vivid but not quite real. Living it and not. He frowns, "Yes," He says, digging his fingers into the marred flesh where metal meets skin, "It hurts. It hurts and I would like to do something about it." Focus. Focus on what is happening, connect.

 

"Ok," Steve tells him then, reaches out and touches his forearm, "Come into the bathroom, let me see if I can help. Is that ok?"

 

Bucky considers. He trusts Steve, as much as he _can_ trust someone. The realization that he would even maybe put his life in Steve's hands is terrifying. It drives him to take shelter in the circle of Steves arms. Fear and mistrust, uncertainty, keeps him rooted to the spot instead.

 

"Okay," he almost whispers it, and follows Steve into the bathroom. He's afraid of maybe leading Steve on, acting too much like he did when ...  when they were something. But hes also afraid of shutting him out, of pushing him away. He doesnt know how to handle it, retreats further into himself.

 

He gives Steve soft monosyllables, small sounds. He doesn't want to talk. Steve keeps asking him questions as he leads him into the bathroom, turning on the space heater to get it warm. He asks him something and Bucky makes a broken little sound, buries his face in his hands and heaves out a shaking breath. "Stop!" he whispers in an agonized voice.

 

Between his fingers he peeks at Steve, who has immediately stopped talking stopped touching him, backed up out of his space. He looks stricken, guilty, afraid concerned. It forces a dry sob from Bucky's tight throat. He is so afraid that Steve will stop taking care of him. Nobody has the patience, nobody wants to take care of him, hes psycho. He's broken.

 

Its all he wants, a deep and hurting part of him realizes, he just wants to be taken care of.

 

"I dont want to talk!" He yowls, hugging himself, his knees, a writhing shaking panicked ball. All that emotion he cut off last night has belatedly hit him and he is drowning in its wave.  "Stop making me! I hate the sound if my own voice reminding me I am alive! I want to be a ghost again! This is too much! Living is-- too much"

 

He wants to go back to being a robot, a ghost, a puppet. A thing of blood and rage that feels nothing. This hurts and scares him, this constant flowing tide of feeling.

 

Steve takes a deep shaky breath, wipes the hurt expression off his face, sighs out slow. He approaches Bucky, palms out, slowly and kneels down beside him where Bucky is curled up in the corner against the bathtub wracked with ugly gasping dry sobs.

 

"Okay," Steve says, putting his hands on Bucky's shoulders when he doesn’t flinch away from him, “Okay,Bucky. You don’t want to talk, that’s fine, okay? You don’t _have_ to do anything you don’t want to. All you have to do is tell me and I’ll stop. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. Bucky, listen, you gotta breathe.”  Steve has to swallow thickly suddenly, as a wave of panic as his own hits him. He shuts his eyes tight, flares his nostrils in a deep breath. Not _now_ , he growls it down inside his head. Not now, Bucky needs him and he’s not going to fuck this up.   
  
“Breathe, okay? Bucky, can you take a deep breath for me?” His voice still comes out too fast, too urgent despite his best efforts, he feels shaky, his chest feels tight like it used to when he still had asthma. He can’t get enough air in his lungs. He clears his throat. Bucky takes one shuddering deep breath, “Good, good. Keep taking deep breaths for me, baby.”  
  
He flinches as soon as he says it. He can’t call Bucky that anymore, he’s not his to call that. Bucky’s entire body goes stiff and Steve squeezes his eyes shut. There he goes, fucking things up just like he thought he would. He decides to brush it off, if he lingers ,it will be A Thing and he wants to avoid that. “Breathe, just like that. Keep breathing. You don’t have to say a word Bucky, not at all, not all day, not all week, not ever. We’ll find way to talk to each other. Okay? Anything to make you feel more comfortable.”  
  
Bucky peeks at him with round, wet eyes, suspicious, but then his eyes get shiny and wet again and he makes a little broken sound and nods. He wants to hug Steve, but he wants to never be touched again. He doesn’t know what he wants. He compromises, leaning forward and touching his forehead to Steve’s shoulders, but when Steve reaches out to hold him he tenses up and shakes his head.   
  
Steve nods, and lets his hands fall down in his own lap. Bucky just leans on him for a while, his face hidden by the curtain of his hair, and feels his heart beating. He doesn’t want to talk, Steve says that’s okay, so he doesn’t talk when he sits back up. He rubs his shoulder, hoping Steve understands.   
  
Steve smiles at him a little, it’s shaky, and Bucky thinks there might be something in his eyes that isn’t good. Bucky’s stomach flips anxiously. Did he do something wrong? But then Steve runs his hand up his forearm. “Still want me to try and help your shoulder?” He asks him, and he sounds so gentle… Bucky wonders what would happen if he just went along with it. If he just let Steve treat him however he used to when they were something, if maybe Bucky will feel that again… He wants to be loved and taken care of.   
  
But he can’t find it in him to lie to steve, he doesn’t feel that, not now. He might, maybe, there’s no telling, because he barely feels anything anymore. The memories haven’t come back, not completely and he doesn’t know what he feels about anything. He just nods. “I have to touch you, Bucky, is that okay? All you have to do is nod.”  
  
So he does, and Steve gets a little tin of stuff that smells medicinal and strong, but not bad and moves to sit on the edge of the tub. Steve dips his fingers in the waxy, orangish salve in the tin, then sits it down. It says Tiger Balm on it, and Bucky picks it up curiously, sniffs it and rubs a tiny bit on his fingertips experimentally. It burns in a strangely cool sort of way, a mix of sensations that makes his fingertips tingle. Steve rubs it into the skin around his metal arm, and then grips the place with his hand. He digs his fingertips in and rubs, begins to massage out all the kinks. Bucky takes a deep, slow breath, sighs out nice and slow, a little humming note at the end. Steve is so gentle, and this feels so good. Bucky wants to give him everything that Steve wants from him. He can pretend, he can try and fit into the niche he used to occupy, he can fake it till he makes it. He turns, kneeling in the space between Steve’s knees, he reaches out with shaking hands to touch him. He can do this, he can be the Bucky Steve wants him to be. He _can_.  
  
Steve seems to read his expression, seems to know just what he has planned. He puts his hands on Bucky’s shoulders and keeps him from getting closer. “No,” Steve whispers hoarsely to him, and it kills him to do it. But he knows what Bucky is doing, it’s just like what he tried to do. Throw himself back into what was expected of him, be a person he wasn’t to please someone else, as if maybe that would find him his happiness. “Bucky, please don’t do that. I know you -- Not now. Just. Wait,” He can’t seem to resist sliding his hand down to Bucky’s, to squeeze it, even almost brings it to his mouth, “I need you to focus on you first, I need to know that you’re okay, that you’re --"  
  
Bucky makes a self deprecating noise, pulls away from Steve and curls back into himself. His shoulder doesn’t hurt anymore, but there’s an ache somewhere inside of him that he can’t place. He’d think it was his heart if he thought it still worked, “Sane enough?” He says bitterly. “ _trustworthy_?”  
  
“ _Healthy_.” Steve tells him firmly, “Bucky, I want you okay.”  
  
Bucky’s mouth trembles, but he nods. “Yeah, Steve. I get it.” Bucky gets up and leaves the room, arms around his middle. Steve wants to go after him, but as the door clicks softly shut the panic-wave comes for Steve again. He gasps, draws himself into the small space Bucky occupied, digs his hands into his hair. _no no no come on no_ he thinks to himself, his chest tight _no not now, not now_.  He shakes. He wants his friends, he wants to go to Sam, to Natasha, he’s scared and overwhelmed and he maybe just fucked up everything he was trying to build back with Bucky.  
  
He finally gets to the point where he can swallow it down, fake it. He repeatedly licks his lips, bites at the, tugs his hair anxiously.  He paces the bathroom several times, until eventually he sighs heavily, drinks from his hands from the faucet and leaves the bathroom. He gets the heating pad, which he now thinks of as Bucky’s heating pad, and takes it to where Bucky is, curled up in the corner of the couch. Bucky doesn’t look at him, face in his arms on the arm of the couch.   
  
He plugs the heating pad in, folds it, and places it over his shoulder gently. He rests his hand there for a second. “Bucky? You don’t have to say anything, I’m just telling you that I need to go out to do a few things, okay? I’ll be back, I promise.” He didn’t miss the way Bucky tensed, when he said he was leaving, “You never have to worry about that, i’ll be back, always.”  
  
Bucky nods, then. Steve relaxes just a little about leaving him alone, but his heart is still flying in his throat, and he’s dizzy with the leftover fear, and if he comes back home to find that Bucky is gone…   
  
His breath hitches at the sudden rush of panic, alarm bells and flashing lights all screaming like a too-sensitive car alarm. Bucky looks up at him and Steve manages a mockery of a smile, shrugs and shakes his head, “I’m fine, i’m fine,” he assures him, but too quickly. Bucky looks confused, surprised. Steve had told him that his happened to him, too, but he wasn’t sure he believed him.   
  
It’s hard to miss, the panic-wild look in his eyes, even when he’s smiling, he’s tense all over,breathing too quick. Without thinking, Bucky’s hand comes up and closes around his wrist, tightens just a little. Steve’s expression softens a little. “I’ll be back later.” He turns his hand over and wraps his fingers around Bucky’s wrist, over the still flying pulse, knowing his is just as bad. He squeezes, then lets him go.   
  
He still wants his friends, people he feels comfortable shaking apart in front of, people who can be strong for him since he can’t. He gets ready to go, only stopping once when his world tilts on its axis under his feet when his breath catches again.  He clears his throat, pretends to be pulling his shoe on and then shrugs his jacket higher up his shoulders. “Bye, Bucky, i--” He jingles his keys, tries to gauge how long he might be gone, “I’ll be back today, okay? Tonight maybe. But i’ll be back.”  
  
Bucky raises his silver hand in acknowledgement but doesn’t lift his head. Satisfied, sort of, Steve leaves. He tries Sam’s place, but he’s at work (Steve knew that, he did, but he kind of hoped…)  and so he heads to the tower. Nat’s out, which Steve is greatly disappointed by, but then Tony comes through the door and sees his face and his own face falls. “What’s up, Stars and Stripes?” He asks him gently.  
  
Tony gets them too, Steve tells himself, shifting uncomfortably. He and Tony are friends, they’re _friends_ they should be able to not have secrets. Tony panics, and he has nightmares, and he has flashbacks and… Steve narrows his eyes at him, he tries to figure out what Tony would say about Bucky…  
  
Bucky who might not be there when he gets home. The hitch in his breath comes again, he buries his face in his hands. “Don’t-- Hey. Cap, come on.” Tony’s voice is gentle, he knows the signs, the shaking, breathing too fast for his lungs, the distant, far away look of panic.  Tony closes the space between them and puts his arms around Steve’s broad shoulders, it’s awkward at first, with Steve’s hands brought up to cover his face, but then Steve moves them around Tony’s middle.   
  
This is what Steve needed, he was seeking comfort, though maybe not from Tony originally, but he knew the first thing he was going to do when he saw Nat or Sam was bury his face in their shoulder. “Thanks,” he whispers into the fabric of Tony’s shirt and Tony nods, just bringing a hand up to rest it on the back of Steve’s head.  
  
Tony’s good at this, at hugs, he does it like everything else, with his whole heart. Steve is abruptly very glad that they’re friends, even if Tony drives him crazy most of the time. “No problem. What’s got the star spangled man with a plan so down?”  
  
  
Steve’s mouth trembles and he nuzzles a little closer into Tony’s shoulder, hugs him a little tighter. He feels Tony go a little stiff, the dawning realization that this is a Big Deal finally occurring to him. “Steve?” Tony murmurs and Steve swallows the very soft sob that tries to leave his mouth.   
  
“I have to tell you something,” He whispers, nervous and unsure, “I have to tell you but please-- Please don’t freak out.”  
  
Tony scoffs, “I’m not gonna _freak out_ \--”  
  
“Tony you _always_ freak out.”  
  
“... That’s fair.”

The words come reluctantly at first, and then, when Tony actually _doesn’t_ freak out, like a faucet. He shakes the whole time, and Tony does little things that soothe him and keeps bringing that rush of affection, the gratitude for their friendship back. He gets Steve water, and he keeps his hand on his wrist, and when Steve’s breath hitches  and he stutters, he’s patient (rare, for Tony Stark) and encouraging and never tries to hurry him up.  He tells Tony about his panic attacks, about how he tries to ground himself with the heating pad, the spinner ring, the knife thing. Everything, it just comes pouring out of him and Tony listens to every single word and he doesn’t freak out. Steve loves him, Steve is glad that they’re friends.

 

“I love him,” Steve rasps at last, between his fingers, peeking at Tony anxiously, “I loved him then, I love him now. All these things that he’s done, I know them all. I’ve read the files, and I don’t love him any less. If it had come to it… I would have died loving him. But he doesn’t remember.” Another soft hitch in his breath, Tony wraps his fingers back around Steve’s wrist, thumb over his thrumming pulse, “He doesn’t--but I think maybe he will. But I-- I told him too much too soon and I might have fucked it all up.”

 

Tony takes a deep breath, rubs his free hand over his beard and sighs out slowly, “Damn, Cap.” He murmurs, trying to gather his thoughts together and find the right words. Steve knows that look on his face, and knows that Tony’s thoughts are all confused half-words and images. Tony always has trouble putting them into spoken words, which Steve has learned means sometimes they come out in ways he doesn’t mean, and can be kind of offensive.  So Steve waits patiently, and just takes comfort in Tony’s hand gently wrapped around his wrist while he thinks.   
  
“You probably thought I was going to freak out about the whole harboring a dangerous fugitive thing, right?”  
  
Steve laughs, a little bitter, and nods  
  
“But he doesn’t sound very dangerous. Not anymore. Sounds-- scared. Sounds like he needs somebody-- Needs _you_. Steve’s he’s… He’s still him in there somewhere, he’s gotta love you still, right? I dunno, i’m-- I’m not very good at -- at feelings and love. Pepper can tell you that. But... “ He gets the confused, frustrated look that means his thoughts aren’t clear enough to be said succinctly. He shrugs. “I dunno. About that part. Just-- Mm. Look, he needs time to get better, right? He needs you, and you need us to help you help him. I’ll talk to Pepper and the legal team, we’ve got your back. What does he need that I can help with? Clothes? Therapists? Meds?”  
  
Steve looks at Tony, feeling that rush of affection for him again and he hugs him without thinking, “I’m glad we’re friends” he tells him, and he means it. Tony gets a little flustered, puts his face against Steve’s shoulders. “Me too” he mumbles, and he means it. It took them a long time, but it takes a lot of people a long time to understand Tony and learn how to deal with him. Steve’s patient with him now, and rather than jumping at him every time Tony says something that pisses him off, he tries to figure out if he really meant it that way. And if he did, maybe they fight, but rarely do they ever get to the constant angry fever pitch they had upon first meeting one another. Steve sticks up for Tony now, in private and in the press, even when he fucks up and Steve _knows_ he fucked up, Steve is always quick to remind everyone that Tony always has everyone's best interest at heart-- he just fucks it up sometimes. A lot of times.  
  
After a moment of mutually reveling in how thankful they are for the friends they’ve made, Steve takes a deep breath and lets go of Tony. “He needs clothes, yeah, a therapist-- but they’ll have to sign a gag order. Maybe take Nat along, intimidation. We’ll think about medication later.”  
  
“You said he fidgets and he really likes that spinner ring,” Tony puts in, already taking out his stark tab to place some orders and look some stuff up, “How bout stim toys? Me and Bruce have ‘em all over the lab, I bet we can spare a few right now for you to take home with you. Why don’t we go shopping, you’d know what he likes and what fits him better than me. Here, pick some stuff and we’ll order it” He hands the Starktab to Steve, a website that sells fidget jewelry and stim toys pulled up already. Steve has seen Tony and Bruces’ little things, tins of metallic colored putty, toys that move and click, things that Bruce chews on when he’s thinking or stressed, little puzzle boxes and stress balls.   
  
Steve can’t help but smile, Tony over his shoulder while he goes through their stock and orders things for Bucky, a charcoal-silver putty, a couple of the puzzle fidgets, a felt fidget ball. They order a few more things online, Tony hooks him up with a therapist appointment in two weeks (before which he promises he’ll talk to legal and get Natasha to come along with him), and then makes sure Steve is okay to go out. After Steve thinks about it for a second, he says he is, probably and Tony leads them off with the appropriate level of Tony Stark enthusiasm.   
  
By the time they finish everything, with a break that Tony insists on (read: whines for) for dinner somewhere, it’s long gone dark and Steve feels much, much better. But he still kind of feels a little terrified, going up the steps to his apartment with Tony behind him, both with arms full of bags. “You don’t even have an elevator--” Tony is whining, but then gets distracted “Oh! Kitty, hi kitty kitty hello” He tries to pet Kinkade, who ran to see Steve meowing her weird little scratchy meow, and drops two bags.  
  
“Tony,” Steve laughs, “That’s _my_ cat, you can pet her when we’re done. Help me get inside.”  
  
“How do we get your key?”  
  
“Shit. Uh.”  
  
But then Bucky’s voice from inside, “Steve?”   
  
Steve sighs in relief, he’s still there. He’s there-- and they have a way inside that doesn’t involve having to give in and sit their bags down.   
  
“Yeah, it’s me Buck”  
  
“... You’re not alone.”  
  
“No, but it’s okay. This is my friend, Tony. He’s just helping me bring stuff inside. We got you some things today, he helped me out.”

  
After a moment of hesitation, Bucky unlocks and opens the door, quickly backing up out of arms reach again to hover uncertainly in the archway between the short hall and the living room.  Tony comes in behind Steve and unceremoniously drops all his bags on the floor, then picks up Kinkade. She meows once at him, indignant, then he scratches her chin and she gives in and purrs happily. Tony murmurs to her and kisses her head a lot. Pepper won’t let him have a cat, half because she’s allergic and half because Tony’s not the most responsible, and forgets to feed himself most of the time.   
  
“Hi,” He tells Bucky, lifting one hand rather awkwardly off of Kinkade to wave at him, but he doesn’t offer to shake, or introduce himself, or anything that might make Bucky feel pressured. Bucky’s grateful for that, and so is Steve. Bucky almost mirrors him, but then thinks better of it, and wraps his arms around his middle he just sort of shrugs and nods at him a little.   
  
“Don’t worry,” Steve tells Bucky softly, pausing as he passes Bucky, “He’s not staying long, I just have some stuff to give back to him. Ok?”  
  
Bucky nods, “ok,” He whispers, and then retreats out of the way into Steve’s room. Tony follows Steve in, but he doesn’t help with the bags, just carries Kinkade and sits down on Steve’s coffee table and continues to cuddle and kiss her. Steve gets the books and CDs that Tony, Bruce or Pepper have loaned him, the ones he’s finished with, and puts them all in a bag for Tony to carry down to the waiting car to return them.   
  
He walks Tony to the door of the apartment and hugs him tightly, “Thanks for all your help, Tony,” He tells him sincerely, while Tony stands on tiptoe to hug him back.  
  
“No big deal, Capcicle. Call me if you guys need anything else, okay?”  
  
“I will, promise. G’night Tony.”   
  
“Later gator” Tony tells him, and then takes the steps down two at a time, stopping halfway down to yell, “Try and make it to movie night this Thursday!” Steve makes sure he makes it into the car, then locks up and begins to sort the bags. Some of them are more borrowed books, dvds, cds, some of them are things for himself, he gets Bucky’s all separated and carries them into the bedroom.   
  
“Wanna see what we got you?” Steve asks him, and now that his panic has thoroughly subsided, he can smile at him, raise his eyebrows and hold the bags out enticingly. But God, Bucky curled up in the middle of Steve’s bed, wearing Steve’s too big clothes, looking sleepy and rumpled and expectant. Steve’s breath catches and his heart turns over. He just wants to gather him up, envelop him, never let him go. Instead, he just closes the space between them enough to sit on the bed across from Bucky with the bags between them.   
  
“Okay, so we got you some clothes-- “ Steve takes them all out one by one, jeans, henleys, flannels, hoodies mostly, and a pair of very soft, cozy looking grey pajamas. Bucky touches every item as Steve takes it out of the bag, but he lingers the most on the pajamas, sliding his fingers back and forth over them absentmindedly. “If you don’t like anything, don’t worry, i’ll just take it back, or maybe donate it.” Steve says a little anxiously, shrugging, fiddling with the edge of another bag, “Sam’s got a donation box at the VA, so--”  
  
Bucky shrugs, looks at him uncertainly, “I mean. It’s not like I had anything at all before. These are all nice.”  
  
Steve smiles sheepishly at him, feeling a little bit better now, and then goes into the bag of stuff Tony and Bruce gave up from their collection of stim toys. Bucky curiously clicks and crumples a circlet of interlocked plastic links called a Klixx, decides he likes it and when he puts it down he sits it in his lap, picks up what looks like a big, blue plastic bendy straw, crinkled all the way down. When flexed or stretched it makes a hollow plastic crinkling noise, which Steve really don’t care for, but he sees the very slight widening of Bucky’s eyes, watches him repeat the motion several times seemingly on autopilot. Bucky likes it, so Steve will deal with the noise, even if it sets his own teeth kind of on edge.   
  
The last two things don’t go so smoothly. One is a pretty run of the mill stress ball full of sand, but Bucky squeezes it with his metal hand absentmindedly and it bursts. His eyes widen and he immediately looks up at Steve, half-flinching like he expects at the very least to be scolded, and at the worst… well, Steve doesn’t think about that. But Steve laughs, at first in surprise, a soft little bark of sound and then because of the situation in general. He cups his hands under Bucky’s to catch the steady stream of soft white sand in his own. “Whoops,” He says softly, and Bucky blinks at him in surprise and then he _smiles_ and it’s not big or bright or sunny, but it’s an actual, genuine smile, and Steve can tell some of it is from relief.   
  
Steve sweeps the sand from his and Bucky’s hands, and the bed, into one of the empty bags, and lets Bucky drop the remains of the ball into it. “Okay, so, no stress balls.” Steve chuckles, and Bucky smiles at him again, peering up through his hair at him.  A little knot has come undone inside of Bucky somewhere, and even if it is a small knot, all the others feel looser because of it. “There’s this, too.” Steve hands Bucky the container of playdoh, which he snagged on the way back, remembering the girl he passes in his therapist’s office who always has some the same shade of blue as her hair. This one is pink, though Steve didn’t really pay attention to the color, he just grabbed it and kept moving.   
  
Bucky opens the container and presses his flesh and blood fingers into the soft, doughy putty inside. He likes it at once, it smells nice and it’s soft and cool, warming up slowly under his touch, and works it out of it’s little pot. He squeezes it first in his flesh hand, then in both of them, squishes it for a few minutes. He’s just starting to relax into the soothing repetitive motion when he suddenly stops. “oh.”  
  
He takes the playdoh away from his metal hand, only to find it stuck in the joints and grooves, “oh,” he says again, but it’s soft, somewhere between embarrassed and amused.   
  
“Oh no!” Steve can’t help but laugh, covering his mouth but dropping his head back earnestly, “Oh,no, we did not think this through,” He realizes as he reaches out and takes the playdoh that Bucky is laughing and his entire body goes first cold, and then warm right down to his bones. He stops using the playdoh to gently press against Bucky’s metal hand, getting all the little stuck bits out of the small crevasses in the metal. It’s not a loud laugh, it doesn’t roll through his body the way Steve’s does when he’s genuinely amused, but it’s there and it’s not a short there-and-gone noise, either. He’s very softly laughing at this situation, and that smile is on his face again and Steve could cry.   
  
He swallows tightly instead and finishes what he’s doing, smushes the playdoh back into it’s container and watches Bucky turn his hand over to inspect it, laughing a little louder as he does. Bucky _smiles_ at him, and Steve’s heart flips and he has to swallow it back into place. Bucky thinks that maybe he’s finally realizing happiness isn’t beyond his capabilities. He’s still afraid, and parts of him are still hollow and dark, and he probably has to work extra hard to feel happy but maybe he can. He feels tears start to well up, but they’re fine, they’re okay. He’s just overwhelmed by the fact that positivity is something he can be capable of, no matter what he’s done and what has been done to him, it hasn’t taken everything from him.   
  
And Steve smiles at him like Bucky just handed him the _sun_ and Bucky’s mouth trembles, he buries his face in his hands and makes a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “Oh,” he hears Steve say urgently, moving back into his space once more, his hands gently taking Bucky’s wrists, “oh, no, Bucky don’t--”  
  
“No, no it’s--” Bucky manages, clears his throat and peeks through is fingers with wet eyes, he’s still smiling a little, but its a little shaky, “i’m okay,” he can’t believe he means it but right now in this moment he _means it_ and that means so much, he hiccups another little sob, “I’m okay. I just--I’m happy right now and I...it’s a lot.”  
  
But then he laughs a little, like he can’t believe that this is happening to him, in the best sort of way. “I’m okay,” He repeats, though he isn’t sure whose benefit it’s for. Steve is smiling at him again, and can’t seem to resist leaving his hands on Bucky’s wrists. They can _do this_. He can’t help it, he kisses Bucky’s forehead, and even in the small gaps between his fingers he sees Bucky’s whole face go red, the corners of his eyes crinkle and he hides his face again.   
  
“I got you one more thing, stay here, okay, hold on. You’re gonna love it. Hold on.” Steve grabs a bag and hurries out into the kitchen, leaving Bucky feeling like an idiot, smiling into his hands, with his face all red and eyes full of tears. He hears Steve run the microwave for a minute, and then come hurrying back, shuffling his sockfeet on the kitchen tile and _God_ Bucky’s glad to be here right now. He can’t remember the last time he was glad to exist.   
  
“Here,” Steve tells him, plopping back down on the bed in front of him and holding out what looks like a plush owl, the only thing he immediately notices is different is that it smells like a cup of herbal tea. Mint and chamomile and lavender and lemon balm. Which is nice, but he can’t imagine that would be enough to make Steve buy him a stuffed animal. So Bucky reaches out and takes it. It’s a lot heavier than he expected, which is… oddly, incredibly pleasant, and it’s _warm_. Not quite hot, but teetering on the edge. His eyes go wide and he turns the sleepy grey and purple owl, made of very soft fleece and corduroy over in his hands a few times. He buries his nose in it and breathes. It’s heavy, a good size to hug, it’s warm and smells _amazing_. Maybe he should be kind of ashamed of already being so attached to it, it’s a stuffed thing meant for children, but all he can do is hug it tightly and sigh his joy.   
  
He smiles at Steve, and flops down sideways on the bed, still hugging his new gift. Between the ring, all the things given to him tonight, and now this, Steve seems dead set on spoiling him and Bucky sure as hell doesn’t mind. When he opens his eyes, Steve has laid down next to him, facing him. He goes a little red again, but this time hides his face up to his eyes behind the owl. “Thanks,” he whispers to him, and Steve just smiles at him. They’re really close, and both of them notice it, but both of them are also entirely content with just existing near one another right now.   
Steve shifts just a little, tucking his hand under his head, and now he’s only a few inches from Bucky’s face, both of them curled in toward one another, strands of their hair even mingle. Steve sighs, closes his eyes in sleepy contentment. Bucky blinks at him, just watches his face for several long moments. He doesn’t deserve Steve, he can’t believe that all of this is happening to him. He wants to cry again, kind of. He just nuzzles his nose into the owl and breathes in again, then watches Steve some more. Blond lashes against his cheeks, and after several moments, small muscle twitches that Bucky knows means he must be falling asleep. Steve has been sleeping on the couch, and Bucky feels a guilty twinge. Maybe he should wake him, or maybe Bucky should go to the couch…   
  
But he doesn’t, he watches Steve sleep for a moment, curls just a tiny bit closer and closes his eyes. He just wants to be close to him for a little longer.   



End file.
